Laws of the Guangdong Province

Administrative Measures of Shenzhen Municipality on Credit Information Collecting and Credit Rank Evaluating of Enterprises

(Formulated by Decree No.122 of the Shenzhen Municipal People' s Government on  November 19, 2002.)

Chapter ¢ñ  General  Provisions

Article 1 In order to establish the credit system of enterprises of Shenzhen Municipality, raise the consciousness of credit and risk prevention of enterprises, normalize the credit information collecting and credit rank evaluating of enterprises, and protect the lawful rights and interests of the party, these measures are formulated in accordance with the provisions of relevant laws and regulations and the actual circumstances of this Municipality.

Article 2 The collection, use, evaluation and consultation of the credit information of enterprises within the administrative areas in this Municipality shall be governed by these measures.

"Enterprises" mentioned in these measures means the legal person or unincorporated for-profit economic organization that is registered in the administrative department of industry and commerce according to law.

Article 3 This municipality creates the organ system of credit information collecting, which mainly consists of the credit information center of enterprises established by the government and the evaluation institution in the market, collects the credit information of enterprises, and makes an inquiry of credit information of enterprises from the society. The evaluation institution provides the service of credit rank evaluating of enterprises.

Article 4 When collecting and disclosing the credit information of enterprises, the information collecting institution shall maintain the interests of the nation and society. It is prohibited to collect and disclose the information that hampers the public safe and order of the society.

When collecting and disclosing the credit information of enterprises, the information collecting institution shall maintain the lawful rights of enterprises, and must not impair the business secret, competition status and other lawful interests of enterprises.

Article 5 When collecting and disclosing the credit information of enterprises, the information collecting institution shall comply with the principles of objectiveness and just, and must not collect or disclose false information. The information providing unit must not provide false information.

The credit evaluation institution shall conduct evaluations in accordance with the law of market economy and the principles of independence, just and prudence.

Article 6 The information collecting institution, information providing unit, user of credit information of enterprises and other working staff shall keep secrets of the information of enterprises obtained in the process of collecting and utilizing them except what shall be opened to the public according to law, and must not utilize the obtained credit information of enterprises beyond the range of use and working powers and duties prescribed in these measures.

Article 7 The government encourages enterprises to establish the administrative system of internal credit of enterprises, strengthen the internal credit administration of enterprises, and prevent the venture of enterprises of their own and the credit venture of clients.

Article 8 The committee of credit information collecting and credit rank evaluating and supervising consists of relevant departments of the municipal government, the information collecting institution and enterprises, and takes charge of the supervision and administration of credit information collecting and credit rank evaluating of enterprises.

The composition, duties and agenda rules of the committee shall be prescribed separately by the municipal government.

The government encourages the evaluation institution to establish the trade organization, and supervise and administrate itself.

Chapter  ¢ò  Credit Information Collecting Institution

Article 9 The municipal government establishes the credit information center of enterprises (hereinafter referred to as "credit center" ), which collects the credit information of enterprises and provides the consultant service for the society according to provisions of these measures.

Article 10 The established evaluation institution shall be the limited liability company or joint-stock limited company, and shall be registered in the administrative department of industry and commerce according to law.

   The establishment of the evaluation institution shall conform to the following conditions:

(1) conforming to the general conditions of incorporated legal person;

(2) having the professionals that are suitable to the business of credit evaluation and have the ability of archives administration, data handling and quantity analysis;

(3) having strict administrative system of information archives and measures of keeping secrecy and safety preventing.

Article 11 The evaluation institution established according to law may go through the following business:

(1) active or entrusted to collect the credit information of enterprises;

(2) providing the service of credit rank evaluating for enterprises according to collected credit information of enterprises;

(3) providing the service of inquiry of the credit information of enterprises;

(4) providing the consultant service of credit administration for enterprises;

(5) providing other service of credit evaluation and consultation of enterprises.

Article 12 Credit center shall provide the service of credit information according to the principle of compensated use, but must not collect charges for the credit information openly disclosed on the internet for an inquiry.

The concrete range of collecting charges of credit center shall be prescribed separately by the municipal government, and the standard of collecting charges shall be checked by the competent price authorities according to provisions.

The standard of collecting charges of the evaluation institution shall be decided by itself according to the market principle.

Chapter ¢ó  Information   Collecting

Article 13 Credit center collects the following credit information of enterprises in this city:

(1) the credit information of enterprises held by the government authorities, judicial authorities and institutions that have the functions of administrative management in this city;

(2) the credit information of enterprises obtained in the financial activities by the financial institutions in this city;

(3) the credit information of enterprises obtained in the service activities by the trade organizations, units of public utility and intermediary organizations in this city;

(4) other credit information of enterprises that the government approves to collect.

Article 14 The evaluation institution may collect the credit information of enterprises by the following ways:

(1) collecting the credit information of enterprises from the credit center;

(2) collecting the credit information of enterprises directly from the enterprises, whose credit information is collected, or their targets of trade;

(3) collecting the credit information of enterprises from relevant reports of public media;

(4) other ways prescribed in laws and regulations.

The evaluation institution shall obtain the consent of enterprises to collect their credit information that is not opened to the public according to law.

Article 15 The governmental and judicial authorities have the duty to provide the credit information of enterprises prescribed by these measures for the credit center except those involving the national secrets. The concrete table of contents shall be prescribed separately by the municipal government.

The financial institution may provide the credit information of enterprises and must provide the information that enterprises evade the debts of the bank for the credit center.

Without the consent of the party, any unit or individual must not provide any third party with the information of other units or individuals obtained in their business activities unless the laws, regulations and these measures have separate provisions.

Article 16 The credit information collecting institution shall keep the original integrity of the information provided by the information providing unit in the activities of collecting credit information.

The information providing unit shall be responsible for the truth of the information that it provided for the credit center; If the information providing unit is the government authority, and the provided information directly comes from the enterprise, the enterprise shall be responsible for the truth of the information; The evaluation institution shall be responsible for the truth of the information collected by itself.

Article 17 The credit center shall collect and transfer the credit information of enterprises from the government authorities and financial institutions through the special net, and may also transfer the data through the public internet with the approval of the competent department of net safety.

Article 18 The credit information collecting institution shall be responsible for the maintenance and management of the database system and materials of credit information of enterprises, and shall renew the database of credit information of enterprises according to the collected credit information of enterprises.

If finding the mistakes when accepting and transferring the credit information of enterprises, the credit center shall timely tell the information providing unit to correct them.

Article 19 The credit information collecting institution shall provide the information-collected enterprises with the inquiry service of their credit information. The information-collected enterprises shall take the license of industry and commerce for an inquiry from the credit information collecting institution.

Article 20 The information-collected enterprises, which think their credit information wrong, may apply to the credit information collecting institution for a correction.

After receiving the correction application of enterprises, the credit information collecting institution shall check it; If it is different from the original information provided by the information providing unit, the credit information collecting institution shall make a correction timely; If it is consistent with the original information provided by the information providing unit, the credit information collecting institution shall tell the enterprises to apply to the information providing unit for a correction.

The enterprises shall supply the written application of correcting information to the information providing unit within 5 working days from the date that the credit information collecting institution tells them. The information providing unit shall issue a written reply within 10 working days from the date of receiving the application of correcting information of enterprises.

Article 21 For the credit information that enterprises apply to the information providing unit to correct, the credit information collecting institution shall deal with it according to the written reply of the information providing unit; If the information providing unit doesn' t reply beyond the deadline, but enterprises still consider the information wrong, they can supply a written objection report. The credit information collecting institution shall put the objection report into the credit information of enterprises.

During enterprises applying for a correction of the information, the credit information collecting institution must not announce the objection information to the outside. If enterprises don' t supply the application of correcting information to the information providing unit beyond the deadline, it will be considered that enterprises have no objection to the information.

Article 22 The credit information collecting institution shall keep a record of using the credit information of enterprises, and shall preserve the record for 2 years from the time of its coming into being.

 The use record of the credit information of enterprises shall include the whole record of the time and the target that the credit information of enterprises is used.

Chapter ¢ô  Information  Disclosure

Article 23 The following credit information of enterprises collected by the credit center may be opened to the public by the internet or other ways:

(1) the basic conditions of enterprises: name, domicile, legal representative, type, scope of business, registered capital, etc.

(2) the results of enterprises' reporting to the government for the examination, approval, registration, identification and annual check;

(3) the record of judgments and adjudications of civil, criminal and administrative lawsuits and adjudications of commercial arbitration that have effect of law on enterprises;

(4) the record of major administrative punishments that have effect of law on enterprises, such as order to suspend production or business operation, revocation of  a  permit  or  license, fine of great amount or confiscation.

The information, disclosed by the credit center because of such information-collected enterprises' illegal activities as evasion or avoidance of tax duties, smuggling and cheating of foreign exchange, evasion of debts of the bank and economy fraud, shall include the name, legal representative, person mainly liable, illegal matters, date of the punishment and concrete punishments of the punished enterprise.

Article 24 The following information of enterprises collected by the credit center shall be disclosed to the relevant authorities of the government according to provisions of these measures:

(1) the financial position of enterprises' operation;

(2) the condition of enterprises' recruitment;

(3) the taxes paying and social insurance paying of enterprises;

(4) the relevant materials issued when enterprises submit to the authorities of the government for examination, approval, registration and authentication.

(5) the basic conditions of working and studying experience of the legal representative, director and higher management of enterprises.

The credit center shall obtain the consent of the information-collected enterprises to disclose the credit information of enterprises prescribed in the preceding paragraph to other units and individuals.

Article 25 The credit center shall disclose the credit record of each enterprise separately, and shall not concentratively disclose the information of the same kind of different enterprises.

The credit center shall equally disclose the credit information of enterprises, and shall openly disclose the information of all enterprises according to the unified standard.

Article 26 The governmental authorities' inquiry of the credit information of enterprises prescribed in Article 24 of these measures shall be based on one of the following cases, and shall be approved by the person in charge of the authorities:

(1) implementing the examination, approval, registration and authentication over enterprises according to law;

(2) finding out and punishing the illegal acts of enterprises;

(3) other conditions that are necessary to inquire for the supervisions over the operations of enterprises according to law.

Article 27 For the information of enterprises that may be disclosed openly according to law, the authorities of the government shall disclose it by themselves through the internet, press media or other ways according to the provisions in Article 25 of these measures, unless the same administrative act of the same governmental authority involves more than two enterprises.

For the credit information of enterprises owned by or obtained from the credit center, the officials of the governmental authorities shall not disclose it openly or provide it for other units or individuals without an approval.

Article 28 The evaluation institution may disclose the information of the information-collected enterprises to their trade objects or planned ones, but the information that the information-collected enterprises demand to keep secret is excluded.

The evaluation institution shall obtain the consent of the information-collected enterprises to disclose the information that they demand to keep secret.

It is considered to be a consent referred to in the preceding paragraph if the information-collected enterprises entrust the evaluation institution to collect the credit information.

Article 29 Enterprises may decide the range and way of the disclosure of their credit information by themselves unless laws, regulations and these measures have separate provisions.

The joint-stock limited company shall disclose the information according to the provisions of Company Law of the People's Republic of China, and the listed joint-stock limited company shall disclose the information according to relevant provisions of the supervision and administration institution of securities besides Company Law of the People's Republic of China.

The trade organization may prescribe the range and way in which the members of the trade organization disclose the credit information of enterprises in the form of trade convention.

Article 30 The longest time limit of the disclosure of enterprises' credit information shall be decided according to the following provisions:

(1) The longest time limit of the record that the enterprise is canceled or its business license is revoked is 5 years;

(2) The longest time limit of the bankruptcy record of enterprises is 10 years;

(3) The longest time limit of the record of enterprises' evasion of debts is 10 years;

(4) The longest time limit of the record of the punishment that the legal representative, director, primary stockholder or other higher management is prohibited to go through some trade is 2 years after the prohibiting time limit is over;

(5) The longest time limit of the record of administrative and criminal punishment is 3 years unless laws, regulations and rules have separate provisions.

The time limit of the disclosure of enterprises' credit information shall be counted from the date when the information is disclosed first unless the preceding paragraph has separate provisions.

Chapter  ¢õ  Credit Rank Evaluating

Article 31 The evaluation institution may evaluate the credit state or rank of enterprises by itself or according to the entrustment of enterprises or other people.

The evaluation institution shall make a report of credit evaluation objectively and justly according to its evaluation standard.

The credit center must not evaluate the credit state or rank of enterprises or make other subjective evaluation.

Article 32 The evaluation standard of the evaluation institution shall be made according to the principles of science and just. The evaluation institution shall make the evaluation measures and interpret or explain it to the evaluated enterprise.

The evaluation measures of the evaluation institution shall include the explanation of evaluation procedure and standard and the systems of evaluating, reconsidering and tracking of the credit rank, etc.

Article 33 The evaluation report made by the evaluation institution shall include the following contents:

(1) the basic conditions of the evaluated enterprise;

(2) the evaluation of credit state of the evaluated enterprise or the credit rank of the enterprise expressed in the form of the figure or letter;

(3) the measures on which the evaluation is based;

(4) the main information on which the evaluation is based;

(5) other contents that the standard of credit evaluation of the evaluation institution requires;

(6) other contents that the enterprise of entrusting an evaluation requires.

Article 34 The evaluation institution may accept the entrustment of the individual or enterprise to evaluate the credit of the enterprise.

When entrusted to evaluate the credit of the enterprise, the evaluation institution must not use the secret information of the evaluated enterprise unless the evaluated enterprise is the entrustment enterprise.

Article 35 The evaluation institution, according to the market demand, may evaluate the credit rank or make the corresponding macro analysis report of credit state for some market body, some trade, some area or some enterprise by itself on the basis of the evaluation standard of it, but the basis must be the lawful and open information.

Article 36 The evaluation institution shall disclose the report of credit evaluation that it is entrusted to make according to the entrustment agreement between the evaluation institution and the entrusting party.

The evaluation institution may issue the free or paid report of credit evaluation made according to Article 35 of these measures by itself, but shall provide the free relevant report for the evaluated body, trade, area or enterprise. The enterprise or individual that uses the report paidly must not provide the report of credit evaluation for other enterprises or individuals to use.

Article 37 The report of credit evaluation made by the evaluation institution is provided to the users only for a reference.

Chapter ¢ö  Legal Responsibility

Article 38 If the credit center and its working staff commit any one of the following acts, the administrative departments of industry and commerce shall order them to remedy the situation, and the supervision department shall investigate and fix the administrative responsibilities of the relevant person liable:

(1) violating the provisions of these measures to collect and disclose the credit information of enterprises;

(2) arbitrarily amending the credit information of enterprises;

(3) refusing the information-collected enterprises to inquiry their information.

Article 39 If the evaluation institution violates the provisions of these measures and commits any one of the following acts, it shall be ordered to remedy the situation and be punished according to law by the administrative departments of industry and commerce; If causing grave damages to the parties, it shall bear civil responsibilities according to law:

(1) arbitrarily handling the evaluation affairs of enterprises' credit without a registration approved by the administrative departments of industry and commerce;

(2) collecting the credit information of enterprises that the law does not demand a compulsory open without the consent of enterprises;

(3) arbitrarily amending the credit information of enterprises provided by the information providing unit;

(4) disclosing the credit information or credit evaluation report of enterprises that the law does not demand a compulsory open without the consent of enterprises;

(5) disclosing the unconfirmed or false credit information of enterprises;

(6) violating the evaluation measures to change the credit rank of enterprises;

(7) refusing the information-collected enterprises to inquire their credit information or refusing to provide the evaluation report for the evaluated enterprises.

Article 40 The enterprises and their working staff, who violated the provisions of these measures to disclose or provide the credit information of enterprises, shall bear civil responsibilities to the enterprises suffering a damage or the credit information collecting institution according to law.

The users of the credit information of enterprises and their working staff, who violated these measures to disclose the credit information of enterprises or use it beyond the using range, shall bear civil responsibilities to the enterprises suffering a damage or the credit information collecting institution according to law.

Article 41 If the administrative authorities and their officials violated these measures to use the credit information of enterprises or provide the false information, the supervision department shall circulate a notice of criticism jointly with the relevant competent departments, and shall investigate and fix the administrative responsibilities of the person directly liable.

Article 42 If having committed any one of the following acts, the credit information collecting institution shall be ordered to remedy the situation within the time limit and be punished by the municipal government competent department of safe administration of the computer according to law.

(1) utilizing the public internet to transfer the collected credit information of enterprises without an approval;

(2) not enacting and implementing the safe and administrative measures of information database.

Chapter ¢÷  Supplementary Provisions

Article 43 The meanings of the following terms of these measures are:

(1) "Collecting of credit information" means the activities of the collecting, transferring, preserving, processing, reorganizing of enterprises' credit information;

(2) "Credit information collecting institution" means the credit center and the evaluation institution established according to these measures;

(3) "The evaluation institution" means an intermediary organization of legal person that is established according to these measures, collects the credit information of enterprises and provides the service of credit administration, consultation and evaluation of enterprises;

(4) "Credit information of enterprises" means the basic registration information and the commercial credit records of enterprises, and other information that may have effects on judging the credit state of enterprises.

Article 44 The collection of credit information and the evaluation of credit of the household of individual business, non-enterprise unit run by the local people and other intermediary organization shall be implemented referring to these measures.

The collection, evaluation and disclosure of credit information of legal representative, director and higher management of enterprises shall be implemented according to provisions of Administrative Measures of Shenzhen Municipality on Individual Credit Information Collecting and Credit Rank Evaluating unless these measures have separate provisions.

Article 45 These measures shall come into force as of January 1, 2003.